With the advent of advanced global communication, new forms of social contract can be created which transcend the geographic state. These new cybercoops or cyberstates will bring humankind to higher levels of cooperation and understanding.

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Wednesday, October 12, 2005

Parallel Reality

* "Scientists now believe there may really be a parallel universe - in fact, there may be an infinite number of parallel universes, and we just happen to live in one of them. These other universes contain space, time and strange forms of exotic matter. Some of them may even contain you, in a slightly different form.

Astonishingly, scientists believe that these parallel universesexist less than one millimetre away from us. In fact, our gravity is just a weak signal leaking out of another universe into ours.

For years parallel universes were a staple of the Twilight Zone. Science fiction writers loved to speculate on the possible other universes which might exist. In one, they said, Elvis Presley might still be alive or in another the British Empire might still be going strong. Serious scientists dismissed all this speculation as absurd.

But now it seems the speculation wasn't absurd enough.

Parallel universesreally do exist and they are much stranger than even the science fiction writers dared to imagine.

It all started when superstring theory, hyperspace and dark mattermade physicists realize that the three dimensions we thought described the Universe weren't enough. There are actually 11 dimensions. By the time they had finished they'd come to the conclusion that our Universe is just one bubble among an infinite number of membranous bubbles which ripple as they wobble through the eleventh dimension.

Is there a copy of you reading this blog? A person who is not you but who lives on a planet called Earth, with misty mountains, fertile fields and sprawling cities, in a solar system with eight other planets? The life of this person has been identical to yours in every respect. "

But perhaps he or she will now decide to click over to atrios without finishing, yet you read on.

I got a glimpse of such a parallel universe the other day as I was going through the drive-in bank. Suddenly, I could see a worldjust like ours where the big tall buildings were not banks or office towers full of corporations owned by stockholders.

But the really big Cooperations had their own towers, just like the Sears Tower in Chicago or the old Chrysler building in New York.

In this world, the Cooperations ruled. They controlled the media through their advertising. They controlled the news through their broad ownership of media properties. They shaped the news and therefore controlled the way the people thought. They made the laws through their contributions to the so-called elected officials. They wrote the text books, the history books, and they created their own religions to give themselves a moral and spiritual foundation and edifice.

These Cooperations existed to provide services and goods for their members. And they were owned and democratically managed by their constituent members. There were Cooperation logos everywhere. They were on the shoes, the hats, the shirts, and the giant stadium score boards.

They sponsored teams and races and golf tournaments.

Some members of these Cooperations were super enthusiastic about their coop. They would belong to no other because they knew that their coop was the very best at what it did for its members.

It was the job of the Cooperation to find, identify, and contract with the very best provider for the product or service that it provided for its members.

Some of the Cooperations did it all. They provided food, housing, transportation, health enhancement, telecommunication, IT support, all in one neat efficient package. They were very powerful entities. Some were even more powerful than the national governments they operated within. Many had economies larger than the economies of the nation states.

Some smaller Cooperations were specialist in their fields, yet their members came from all over the Earth. Some provided unique legal or diplomatic services. Other Cooperations were uniquely local and very much in tune with the land. Still others were simply neighborhood organizations that actually protected and provided for its members.

Your excellent observations point to the truly BIG PROBLEM that humanity faces. None of our existing social structures are sustainable. I've been wracking my head for years at the problem and still come up with a blank. Maybe someone out there has ideas?

1. We know that communism/ socialism in its pure form is a disaster because the idealism quickly degenerates to a society where corrupt people trade favors with their crony friends (kinda sounds like a country we know of eh?) rather than coming up with a "fair" way of evaluating what compensation should go to whom for their contributions to society.

2. We know that "free market" capitalism is a joke because those who claim to cherish its principles (Halliburton and friends) always seem to operate outside the competitive bidding model. We know that the smartest guys in the room (Enron & friends) know how to play the system and make it as corrupt and as dysfunctional as communism. The two C's: communism and capitalism are opposite sides of a same Coin, the one where a manipulative few pigs convince everyone else in the Animal Farm to work like loyal dumb horses till they drop dead; all for the benefit of those who are more equal than others.

3. What is the new, parallel universe alternative? In my mind, it's still a blank page waiting for someone to start sketching in some ideas. Any one have ideas? Any one?

Hi OZ,I enjoyed this post. Indeed there are many times I go through the day and I feel like I am living in a Parallel Reality - this world has become so crazy and many are walking around like zombies. It's so frightening at times its disorientating.

head Iem asked if any one has any ideas. There is an unproven hypothosis that I think makes some sense.

That change for real freedom cannot come externally, through systems like capitalism, socialism, communism, or someotherismincludingreligiousisms. But I think that it has to occur internally - to overcome the mechanical animal influences. We certainly do have a predatory mind (ala Castaneda). I think this is likely to be true. Humanity has been going around in circles for millenia doing nothing - human nature really hasn't changed, imo. We just have bigger and more 'evolved' sticks and clubs to wack eachother with. I think the only hope that exists is to work on our selves with 'super human' effort. If not, I doubt there will be much to work with in the coming years but dusty fields of a distroyed world. What a shame that would be. What a shame the shape the world is in now.

Back to parallel universes this site has some interesting things on the topic:www.cassiopaea.org/cass/wave/_iii.htm

I think things are working exactly as they should. The cause and effect model proves that evil is its own reward. Ex. Enron. Its true that if we do not react appropriately when a problem arises then consequences compound. But the change we are looking for is born and in its infancy and if we look for it, we can join in. We can live differently. We can make new choices. If I change my thinking then eventually my behavior will change. If over time, my thinking has changed and therefore my behavior, then my life will change. This principle is as true on a national level as on the individual. How many revolutions began as 'grass roots' movements? We are defined by what we think and what we feel. That is, I am not my car, my job, my family, my hobby.... I am what I think now and all that I have thought before and all the accompanying feelings of which the net effect, the legacy of all my life's energies, is a product. Is my contribution to history. Rarely in my life have I learned from doing things the right way. If I do not react appropriately when a problem arises or I make a mistake then there are negative consequences. That is where the numbers go into the negative or the positive. I am accountable. I am a contribution to all that there is. The learning curve for this country is heading into a tight arc. I believe that it is the nature of life that we will indeed come out the far side. Right here in this universe.

You have a nice style. If you use reason and good will, together with a search for a fair for all way of organizing, you can't come up with anything else but cooperativism as an answer.Keep your fresh and sober thinking. :)